Translated material
Oath of "Believe"
Contemporary art seeks new sincerity
On December 4, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on Petrovka hosted a presentation of the exhibition project “I Believe,” the opening of which is scheduled for January 28, 2007, on the eve of the II Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art.Invented by Oleg Kulik and supported by the executive director of MMSI Vasily Tsereteli with the participation of the marka:face:fashion agency, the “Believe” program has the subtitle: “Project of Artistic Optimism.” The idea for the project was born to Oleg Kulik during his travels to the countries of the Middle and Far East, Latin America. Ancient cultures and religions give us a catharsis incomparable in strength to the reaction to any modern art project. The idea of searching for new territories and meanings of contemporary art arose. A miraculous vision appeared on the horizon that sacred continent (or island) of metaphysical knowledge, onto which advanced artists of the recent past landed only for the purpose of committing intellectual sabotage. The great love for the sacred is gradually changing the intellectual climate in our art community.
The crisis of neopositivism has been taking place for a long time. Even leftist thought, which arose on the wave of intellectual Frond of the 60s, largely exhausted its energy in criticizing social and political institutions from the positions of neo-Marxism and post-structuralism. As the recent conference “Creating Thinking Worlds” - the theoretical platform of the II Biennale - showed, some adherents of this school admitted that the increasingly sophisticated tools of philosophical criticism are becoming just a simulation of an interesting, original, new thought. The total irony of postmodernism, which is professed by many cult artists, directors, and bohemian audiences, has long since fizzled out, arrogantly disdaining the noble mission of romantic irony to awaken feelings of “nostalgia for infinity.” Infinity as such is blocked by reflection on the material and technical basis of the universe alone. In general, it became unbearable. It became sad.
It is too early to talk about a global change in the strategies of contemporary art. The philosophy of neopositivism, which has become retrograde, and its products (including artifacts, films, books) are still actively in demand by the established system of social and political connections. Leftist thought has, in many ways, long served the existing system of commodity production. At the same conference, political scientist Boris Kagarlitsky said that the attachment of left-wing intellectuals to vague, blurred concepts creates a barrier of misunderstanding of new leftist texts, which ultimately turns out to be proof of the integration of these new leftists into the existing capitalist system.
And yet, the sprouts of a different tradition of thinking, a tradition of building different value coordinates have appeared. Vibes of something else, as they say, are in the air. The experience of catching them is original in each specific case. For me, for example, the appearance on the screens of the film parable “Island” by Pyotr Mamonov and Pavel Lungin as a search for the presence of God in the modern world is important. Also, a sincere joy for me personally was the audiobook in which thirty-year-old actor Kirill Pirogov inspiredly and meaningfully reads not Sorokin and Pelevin, but Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. To understand how these and other private joys can be transformed into a powerful tendency (or, as is fashionable, a trend) of modern art life is the purpose of the project “I Believe”, invented by Oleg Kulik.
It all started with reformatting the usual spatial coordinates. The underground storage facilities of the ancient Winzavod (located next to the Kursk railway station), reminiscent of monastery cellars or ancient Roman catacombs, which are being actively developed today by contemporary artists, were chosen as the venue for the conversations and lectures that have been ongoing since the summer within the framework of the “I Believe” project.
On the appointed day of the next debate, the public arrives at the Winzavod territory. First you need to go inside the huge, graffiti-covered hangar, then go down the rickety stairs into the lower courtyard. The route is indicated by light paths lined with burning candles. Along these paths you need to move inside dark tunnels until you finally find yourself in a floodlit hall with a vaulted ceiling. Rows of chairs are arranged. In front of them stands a black podium with the white inscription “I Believe.” The audience sits down and communicates with the invited guest from among prominent cultural historians, philosophers, artists (guests of past colloquiums were Sergei Khoruzhy, Andrei Monastyrsky, D.A. Prigov...).
The spatial matrix was discussed directly at the last “dispute about Faith” that took place last Thursday, the guest of which was the director of the Scientific Center for Eastern Christian Culture, historian of Byzantine art Alexey Lidov. In an academically thorough manner, at the same time, figuratively and captivatingly, he spoke about the fact that there is no insurmountable gap between medieval ritual and modern performance. Lidov introduced the concept of “hierotopy” (from the Greek “hieros” - “sacred” and “topos” - “space”). It means the creation of sacred spaces as an independent form of artistic creativity. The scientist said that not a single icon, not a single temple was conceived in the Middle Ages discretely or only as an artistic image. They were part of a single “performative” project of sacred space, one that is not material, but absolutely real (for example, the topography of the Heavenly Jerusalem within a monastery or even a country - cf. New Jerusalem as a project of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Patriarch Nikon). In contrast to the concept of “hierophany” introduced by the famous historian of religion Mircea Eliade (as a kind of condescension, “invasion of the sacred”), hierotopy is not concerned with the phenomenology of the sacred (within the boundaries of art discourse this is generally a dangerous area), but rather with its “toolkit”, those basic forms of artistic creativity , whose value will not be limited to formal aesthetic categories. In contemporary art, the creation of such ritual hierotopic spaces, according to Alexei Lidov, is carried out, for example, by Bill Viola. These spaces resonate in those transcendental spiritual spheres that are not subject to logical “reading”.
It is characteristic that in relation to the Middle Ages, Alexei Lidov identifies sacred spaces with confessional ones, and in relation to our time, on the contrary, he separates them. While being faithful to the iconographic tradition, the image of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior seems to him unconvincing in the hierotopic dimension.
Your observer, of course, had a question about a certain conventionality of the hierotopic today, in our “profane” art process. If the aesthetic quality ceases to be the main one, and a recognizable confessional ritual in its previous forms is rejected, what may be a condition (certificate) of a general agreement on the “sacredness” of this or that performative, multimedia (with the creation of an image in space by various dynamically changing forms) directing made just an artist? After all, we do not enter into the “interpretative” sphere of the phenomenon of the sacred itself...
Alexey Lidov attaches great importance in these matters to the intuition of the viewer, who actively participates in the re-creation of the spatial image and correlates the result with his not only cultural, but also spiritual memory. And the viewer’s new spatial optics can be assembled, not least thanks to the “I Believe” program.
Of course, the brave clash at Kulik’s colloquiums of different audiences (artists, art historians, critics and philosophers, theologians), languages, communication styles, of course, the involuntary correlation of conversations of “catechumens” wrapped in blankets in the vaulted catacombs with the flickering of candles creates a theatrically affected impression, as if everything is a little make-believe and not serious. Perhaps it is also explained by the fact that all the participants did not enter their own territory of communication, and everyone in such disputes about the Faith feels like a neophyte. General rules of communication and behavior have not yet been developed.
The personality of the main ideologist of the project, Oleg Kulik, also gives reason to talk about theatricality. “I Believe” is a new and most responsible and alarming stage of his artistic anthropology. He probed nature at different levels of the universe. Almost according to Aristotle, at first Kulik captured the “vegetative” and “sensual” soul (these are functions of the vital activity of the animal organism), today he turned to the “understanding” soul, born of an intellect of divine nature autonomous from the body. And, decisively breaking with the scenario of a dog’s well-being, he chose the image of a peace-loving preacher, warmed by the quiet joy of faith. You should have seen how at the last meeting, which lasted about three hours, in an unheated room (the speakers had steam pouring out of their mouths) Kulik carefully wrapped each guest in blankets that had been prepared in advance and independently carried cups of hot tea and wine through the rows. However, even in this touching care one can discern the role of a mischievous actor. Oleg Borisovich is, after all, an Artist first and foremost. And this saves his project from pretentious vulgarity, and the inspired artistry does not detract from the sincerity and importance of the problems raised.
We will see the first clear example of the effectiveness of the strategy of including the sacred in the context of modern art life at the upcoming large-scale exhibition, in which the participation of more than fifty artists is expected, both masters (Monastyrsky, Koshlyakov, Bratkov, Faibisovich, Zakharov, Psoy Korolenko, D.A. Prigov), as well as the stars of the new generation (Kallima, Korina, Alimpiev, Ilyukhin). The exhibition is supposed to open in the same basements of Winzavod. It makes sense to organize performances on sacred themes there.